The Great Unlearning

Intra-conservative debates and populism.

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Episode 642: The Great Unlearning

Last year, Remnant regular and AEI scholar Matt Continetti published The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism, a tome so nerdy that he and Jonah needed two full podcast episodes just to discuss the first half of it. Today, Matt returns to the program to continue working through the history of the right from the ‘80s to the present. Or, at least, that was the plan. Instead, the conversation ends up focusing on the nature of the new right, how Pat Buchanan changed conservatism, and what Donald Trump’s devotees actually want. Plus, listeners of the Commentary podcast will be delighted to find that Matt is actually allowed to speak.

Show Notes:

– Matt’s page at AEI

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  1. Lee Rone

    Jonah,

    You mentioned Hungary being far poorer than even Alabama and Mississippi. I did a little research in that regard specifically on Mississippi, in terms of average income, poverty rates, and educational levels as compared to other places.

    According to the census, Mississippi's per capita income, (at purchasing power parity, with income adjusted about 15% to account for lower cost of living), is about 82% of the U.S. average, which makes Mississippi's average income similar to the average incomes of Sweden and Australia, both of which have a GDP per capita at PPP of about 82% of the US average.

    I also looked at the federal government's Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)and found that Mississippi's poverty rate as of the 2020 report was about 14%, as compared to California (15%), Florida (14%), New York (13%), and Texas (12%).

    The National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP) measures student standardized test scores, such as 4th graders' reading and math scores. Their latest report found that Mississippi schools performed second best in the nation in reading and third best in the nation in math, in terms of student test scores achieved relative to student demographics, which reportedly account for factors such as race and ethnicity, poverty, and special education.

    In the "student group" categories, Mississippi students outperformed such states as New York, Illinois, Minnesota, and Oregon, meaning that white, Hispanic, and black students in Mississippi each scored higher than their counterparts in those other states.

    When examining student test scores overall without accounting for student groups, Mississippi students' scores were right at the national average.

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  2. Bencblake

    With the education system in such disarray, what are some good ways to get smart on these ideas that have been around forever? Any good recommendations?

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    Marc Frischhertz

    Buying his book. Great pod

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  4. Kurtpoeltl

    When you make a comment such as I personally liked Glenn Beck, it is a real Hitler was nice to his dog moment. Doesn't character matter? Next time your bashing the Clinton's please add perhaps 'They have many friends' or 'I probably would like them, personally'.

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  5. Michel95

    Excellent discussion--many pieces of it could have been expanded to full episodes.

    One question I would like to see discussed at some point is then extent to which the foreign policy views of the new right are really just animated by the 2016 and 2020 election--i.e. are they anti-Ukraine because they hate the West or because Zelensky wouldn't intervene in the US elections the way that Putin did?

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    1. Bobby D

      I think that many of them have a certain fealty for Russia. I’m not exactly sure where Rod Dreher falls in this divide. I take him as a sort of integralist who happens to be Orthodox. It’s clear from Dreher’s past writings that he sees Putin’s Russia as a model of what he’d like to see in the US. If democracy means that we can’t imprison people for Drag Queen Story Hour, then Dreher would prefer autocracy.

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    Ben Connelly

    I had to keep hitting rewind to make sure I caught everything! Loved every minute.

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  7. Richard Kennedy

    Jonah ! Best. Remnant. Ever!
    It might by wise and entertaining in an egghead, policy nerd sort of way to get Matt, like, once month.

    Also, it’s about time! I’ve been complaining to my friends ever since Trump’s ascendancy that the whole thing smells like Buchanan. Nobody believed me. Buchananites complimented me on the dream.

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      Ben Connelly

      Yeah it’s amazing in hindsight how influential Buchanan was.

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    PB3

    Now *this* is the sort of nerdy background radiation to contemporary American intellectualism that I Day-One-subscribed to The Remnant podcast for.

    Although, I wouldn’t hate another episode on a topic as navel-gazingly obscure as theonomy.

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  9. R. James

    I would suggest a better title of this episode would be "Nerdfest III: Revenge of the Nerds", but I guess the title you chose was okay.

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  10. Very Old Grumpy Guy

    I think an interesting topic, which has been discussed elsewhere, is the "anti-expert" posture taken by the new right. I have some sympathy for this line of thinking. However, car mechanics actually do know something useful. Just like Brexit may (or may not) have been a great idea, having it implemented by a bunch of loud mouth, dunderheads- well I would have gone in a different direction. The analogy in our country is what does a mediocre real estate developer- but great entertainer - know about intentional trade?

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      George.Skinner

      One of the problems with populism is that it insists on a broad egalitarianism rooted in a gnawing sense of inferiority. There's this slippery slope from opposing the tendency of elites to snobbishly rejecting ideas out of hand to insisting that everybody's ideas are equally valid. The inferiority complex makes them extremely resistant to criticism, and suspicious of "uppity" people who claim to know more. Then, weirdly, they start snobbishly rejecting ideas out of hand because they don't originate with the populists...

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      1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

        Thanks for your thoughts. I learned something. One of my beliefs of how things work is that strategies/behaviors/products/organisms that are not superior are "competed out" by more efficient things- just evolution, applied broadly, really.

        I have no doubt your description is correct, but I cannot square populism's incredibly dumb life strategy with how it still exists in large enough pockets to elect Donald Trump.

        My "go to" for understanding Trumpism is that these people are correct in their analysis. They have correctly assessed that they do not have the cognitive abilities to compete in an increasingly complex society. To expand slightly - If a technologically advanced, capitalistic systems is global, cognitive ability is rewarded handsomely, while human horsepower is not. They will "die out" - and they know it. If this is true, it is perfectly rational for them to seek to destroy the current order by whatever means necessary. Chaos and civilization's regression is the path creating an environment in which their line survives. I find this more satisfying than competing explanations, as I don't like to think people behave in a manner that goes against their self interest.

        Thoughts?

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